The Tail of Pelly

Not a regular double wide occupant, I met Pelly here as he was being treated for a bad cold. Pelly is from the “farm pen” which is home to an estimated 30 or so stray cats collected by the owner of a farm in Richmond. Reportedly, the man just liked cats but unfortunately neglected to have any of them spayed or neutered so eventually, cats being cats, he could have had a colony big enough to rival the no. 6 road cat sanctuary had RAPS not intervened.


Surprisingly, Pelly is extremely affectionate considering he has never known domestic life. To quote Leslie, he is a “love muffin”. And in true love muffin fashion, he was all over me when I started to pet him, purring and rubbing up against my hands with ever increasing urgency. He seemed decidedly perturbed whenever I stopped petting him to take his picture. Evidently, not a fan of the paparazzi.


The interesting thing about Pelly is his very bendy, hyper mobile tail. As with most cats, the tail goes up as an indication of pleasure or happiness but with Pelly, it doesn’t just stand straight up in the air, but actually cranks right over where it folds flat on his back and coils slightly around his body in a way I’d never seen a cat do before.


I must have been walking around the sanctuary with my eyes closed because Leslie told me that this was not entirely unique to Pelly and some other cats such as Morgan Fairchild, Shelly and Salty do this as with their tails as well. It is even more common in the farm pen as according to Leslie, about four or five of the farm cats all have similar bendy tails, likely because they are all related to each other in some way.


A genetic quirk perhaps? I don’t know, but I have to wonder if those cats at the sanctuary are doing a little midnight yoga after the lights go down and all the two legged cats have gone home.